Your 90-Day Go-to-Market Plan

A 90-day GTM plan works because it's long enough to see real results but short enough to maintain focus and urgency. The enemy of progress in consulting is the diffuse, 'keep doing things and see what happens' approach. A 90-day plan with specific milestones creates accountability and reveals what's working early enough to adjust. Your 90-day plan should have four pillars: (1) Target clarity — your specific vertical, your ICP, your top 20 target accounts. Not 'mid-market businesses' — 'Brisbane-based professional services firms with 50–200 staff, specifically in legal and accounting.' (2) Outreach engine — your channel (LinkedIn, cold email, referral partners), your cadence (X outreach contacts per week), your messaging. (3) Offer clarity — your one or two productised offerings, priced and scoped, with supporting materials (one-pager, proposal template). (4) Brand building — your content cadence, which channels, what topics. Month 1 (Days 1–30): Foundation. Finalise positioning and offer. Set up outreach systems (LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Apollo, email sequence tool). Publish 12 LinkedIn posts. Have 10 discovery conversations — not necessarily to sell, to learn. Month 2 (Days 31–60): Activation. Active outreach to 50 target contacts. Convert discovery conversations into proposals where appropriate. Aim for 2–3 paid engagements started. Month 3 (Days 61–90): Optimisation. Double down on what's working in outreach. Complete first engagements with excellence. Request case studies and referrals. Re-evaluate positioning based on real market feedback. Milestone targets by Day 90: 5 signed engagements (mix of audits and implementations), $150K+ in contracted revenue, 3 case studies in progress, 500+ LinkedIn followers in target audience, 2 active partnership conversations.

Strategy without execution is worthless. The 90-day plan only delivers if you operate with consistent daily and weekly rhythm. Here's the operating system for a founder-led AI consultancy in growth mode. The weekly rhythm: Monday — review pipeline, set the week's priorities, send Monday content post. Tuesday/Wednesday — client delivery time, blocked and protected. Thursday — business development focus: outreach, follow-ups, partnership conversations. Friday — content creation and planning for next week, weekly review (15 mins: what moved forward, what's stuck, what decision do I need to make?). Pipeline management: maintain a simple pipeline tracker — even in a spreadsheet — with: contact name, company, stage (prospect/qualified/proposal/closed), deal value estimate, next action, and next action date. Review it every Monday. Nothing should sit without a clear next action and a date. Deals stall because the next action is vague ('follow up when they're ready') rather than specific ('email Thursday with the case study they asked for'). Cash flow management: consulting businesses fail on cash flow more often than on lack of clients. 50% upfront on all project work. Net 7 payment terms on invoices. Chase overdue invoices immediately — don't let them drift. Maintain 3 months of operating expenses in reserve. Know your minimum viable revenue (what you must earn each month to cover all costs) and track against it weekly. Review at Day 30, Day 60, Day 90: what worked, what didn't, what you're doubling down on, what you're stopping. The businesses that compound fastest are those that learn and adjust fastest. Treat the 90-day plan as a living document, not a fixed schedule.